After retiring from Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, where he served as founding director from 1994 to 2022, Edward P. Djerejian was appointed a senior fellow at the Middle East Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in June 2022.
His career in the U.S. Foreign Service spanned the administrations of eight presidents, from John F. Kennedy to William J. Clinton. Djerejian is a leading expert on national security, foreign policy, public diplomacy, and the complex political, security, economic, religious, and ethnic issues of the broader Middle East. Having played a central part in the Arab-Israeli peace process and regional conflict resolution, he is the author of Danger and Opportunity: An American Ambassador’s Journey through the Middle East (2008).
After serving in Korea with the United States Army as a first lieutenant between 1961 and 1962, Djerejian joined the Foreign Service in 1962. He was staff assistant to George W. Ball, the under secretary of state, from 1962 to 1964. He next served as a political officer in Beirut, Lebanon (1966–1969) and Casablanca, Morocco (1969–1972). Between 1975 and 1977, Djerejian was assigned as consul general in Bordeaux, France. Assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow from 1979 to 1981, he headed the political section during the critical period in U.S.-Soviet relations marked by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Djerejian served as deputy chief of the U.S. mission to the Kingdom of Jordan (1981–1984). He was then assigned to the White House in 1985 as special assistant to President Ronald Reagan and deputy press secretary of foreign affairs, going on to serve as deputy assistant secretary of Near Eastern and South Asian affairs (1986–1988). Djerejian served both President Reagan and President George H. W. Bush as U.S. Ambassador to the Syrian Arab Republic (1988–1991). He then served under both President Bush and President Clinton as assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs (1991–1993), followed by his appointment by President Clinton as U.S. Ambassador to Israel (1993–1994). In these capacities, he played key roles in the Arab-Israeli peace process, the U.S.-led coalition against Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, the successful efforts to end the civil war in Lebanon, the release of U.S. hostages in Lebanon, and the establishment of collective and bilateral security arrangements in the Persian Gulf.
Ambassador Djerejian graduated with a BS from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1960. He received an honorary doctorate in the humanities from his alma mater in 1992 and a doctor of laws, honoris causa, from Middlebury College in 2004. He speaks Arabic, Russian, French, and Armenian.
Djerejian has been awarded the Presidential Distinguished Service Award, the Department of State’s Distinguished Honor Award, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the Anti-Defamation League’s Moral Statesman Award, the Award for Humanitarian Diplomacy from Netanya Academic College in Israel, the National Order of the Cedar, bestowed by President Émile Lahoud of Lebanon, the Order of Ouissam Alaouite, bestowed by King Mohammed VI of Morocco, and the Order of Honor, bestowed by President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia. A recipient of the Association of Rice Alumni’s Gold Medal for his service to Rice University, he is also a life member of the Baker Institute board of advisors. Djerejian is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honorary societies and independent policy research centers. Djerejian has served on a number of corporate boards, including those of Global Industries, Inc., Occidental Petroleum Corporation, where he was chairman of the board from 2013 to 2015, and Baker Hughes Company. In addition to serving on the board of Carnegie Corporation of New York, he is currently a member of the boards of the Mexico Fund and Magnolia Oil & Gas Operating LLC.
Djerejian is married to the former Françoise Andrée Liliane Marie Haelters. They have a son, Gregory Peter Djerejian; a daughter, Francesca Natalia Djerejian; and four grandchildren, Isabel Alessandra Djerejian, Sebastian Edward Djerejian, Cassandra Colombe Vargas, and Camila Ava Vargas. Edward and Françoise Djerejian reside in Boston, Massachusetts.
